CHAPTER 9:
THE KILLING JOKE
Ivy pinched the bridge of her nose after Harry recounted what had happened during his sojourn. "Okay. First off, we are definitely upping your training. The Green could have warned you of the Death Eaters' approach, especially in a verdant area like Robinson Park, as well as Raven being in the vicinity. You just weren't listening enough."
"I'm new to all of this!" Harry retorted. "I've only just learned what I am, you expect me to have the instruction manual in my head already?"
Ivy sighed quietly, before saying, "No, and I understand that. Secondly, good job on handling your first encounter with one of the so-called superheroes. While I still want you to safeguard the plants of the world, as is your duty as a Planet Elemental, I don't intend to make you follow in my footsteps, Harry. I will train you in how to use your powers, I will teach you the proper respect for the Green, fight for the plants…but whether you join me or take your own path is up to you. You made a good enough impression on Raven that you could even join the Teen Titans if you wanted."
"You wouldn't mind?" Harry asked.
Ivy sighed. "Harry, my lifestyle's not a particularly good one. The best thing about it is my relationship with Harley, and, well, she's damaged goods." Harley was out of the room they were in, the garden of the garden centre, at the time. "I think she needs a good influence away from the Joker, and…well, I'm the best friend she has. We bicker and we fight, especially where the Joker is concerned…but when she's with me, she's less violent, less harmful to others, unless they attack her. And I can fight for my plants, in my own way. Poison Ivy still had a lot of Lily Evans in her, Harry. All that anger, the fighting for a cause, the willingness to do anything to save the ones I love. It was just twisted…and even now, it hasn't gone back to what it was, not wholly. I find myself…disgusted at the state of the world, mundane or magical. In a way, the Batman and I are not so unalike. He too hates the world as it is, and does his best to make it conform to how he sees it. Our differences are our priorities. He prioritises the lives of humans, and I, plants."
"Thanks, Mum. If we do part ways…I hope I don't have to fight you."
"Neither do I. And perhaps it's good that the first so-called superhero you've met was Raven. She would at least understand your situation. A mage with questionable lineage with a prophecy hanging over her head, like you. Doesn't hurt that she's pretty," Ivy said with a knowing smirk at Harry.
"Hey, it's not like that!" Harry protested. "I only just met her, anyway!"
Ivy chuckled. Then, she looked pensive again. "There may be another complicating factor. They may have brought Constantine over."
"Constantine?" Now this name wasn't actually familiar to Harry.
"You don't know him? John Constantine used to go to Hogwarts at the same time I did, before he was expelled, thanks to the Marauders. He was a Slytherin, and was pretty dodgy, but he was no Death Eater. He used to pull pranks on anyone who tried to draw him into the Death Eaters. He disavowed the wizarding world until events had him begin work as an occult detective. I only know of what he's done after Hogwarts by reputation: he's done more than a few questionable things in his career. He's sometimes known as the Hellblazer, because he's annoyed a lot of people above, between and below. Especially below. I'd bet he had come over once he read the Prophet. Look for someone who looks a bit like Sting in a trenchcoat. You know, the singer? Oh, wait, probably too young to know Sting."
"No, I saw him in the old Dune movie…from the cupboard," Harry said. "He was Feyd Rautha, wasn't he?"
Ivy nodded. After a moment, she said, "John is a ruthless bastard, and a cunning one, very Slytherin. But he's managed to stop all sorts of hell from breaking loose, a lot of it very literal. Just try not to get close to him. His friends tend to die. Sometimes, it's not his fault."
Constantine sneezed a couple of times. He thought little of it. Instead, he made his way through Kovurt Alley, smoking like a cynically cheerful chimney, revelling a little in the effect his very presence had here.
In some ways, he and the Batman were very alike. They used their image, their successes, as weapons as potent as Batman's gadgets, or Constantine's magic. Not that Constantine used much of the magic of the wand-wavers anymore. Indeed, he only used magic when necessary. Then again, that dingus Dumbledore had erased many of his memories of spells. The old fart knew that John Constantine would be trouble in the future. And he was right.
But Constantine had had many successes against dangerous opponents. True, he had had many failures, and too many of his victories were pyrrhic ones. But his ability to fight off many beings who'd have the Aurors pissing themselves added to a mystique, so much so that he could basically get a few of his foes to surrender just by turning up. Mostly mortal magicians.
He knew that someone was about to poke a wand (well, a cane that functioned as a wand) into his side seconds before they did it. It was an instinct rather than any sort of prescience. "You're getting sloppy, Constantine," growled a familiar voice.
"Not really," Constantine said cheerfully, pointing a finger where the speaker's groin would roughly be. "Do you really wanna sing soprano, Mad-Eye?"
Mad-Eye chuckled ruefully. "I've got enough bits of me missing, one more won't matter. This way."
Constantine followed Mad-Eye Moody to a nearby café, where Constantine ordered some coffee. Moody merely drank a pull from that damned hipflask of his. The old Auror was looking even more like Frankenstein's Monster than the last time Constantine saw him. Grizzled, scarred features, that blue magical eye whirling in its socket…
"What're you doing here?" Constantine asked.
"I could ask the same thing about you, lad," Moody scoffed. "I know you have ties with the Justice League. And given what's happened recently, I'd put money on there being only one reason why you're here. Harry Potter, and with him, his mother."
"You were sent here by Dumbledore, weren't you?"
"Aye. Though I'm beginning to wonder what's going through his head, apart from lemon sherbets and woolly thinking. He wanted me to try and find some associates of Potter before they can be influenced by Ivy. And while that's a possibility, I knew Lily. Then again, I thought I knew Dumbledore. This revelation has thrown some of his actions recently into a new light, none of it good. Don't get me wrong, I still think Potter being with Ivy's a bad idea. I just need to find out if being back at those Muggles in England was worse."
"So you're trying to find out the truth for yourself, Mad-Eye?"
"Aye. Not the truth as the Ministry or Dumbledore has it. Snape also heard that a couple of Death Eaters had been sent over to try and capture Potter and Ivy. The thing is, I haven't seen Dumbledore panic like this for a long time. I think the last time was when he found something in a cave near Hogwarts, a day or so after the Potters were supposed to have died. He had me destroy some pool of green liquid where some leylines crossed. All he said was, a monster emerged from it, that it was contaminated by dark magic."
"Green…liquid? At leylines?"
"Yeah, Hogwarts is built on a meeting of them, but there's clusters of leylines meeting all around it. Why? Is that significant?"
"Well, if I didn't know any better, that sounded a bit like a Lazarus Pit," Constantine said.
"Lazarus Pit? You mean those foul things Ra's al Ghul uses?" Moody asked.
"Yeah. Dumbledore might not have been talking about a literal monster. Dump a recently deceased person into one of those, and they come back out alive. Of course, they're also insane to boot for a time. If it was a Pit, he might have put someone into it, and that someone came out insane." His eyes widened, and he looked over at Moody. "Do you think he could have put Lily in?"
"The Prophet mentioned a specific spell used on her. No…I reckon Dumbledore tried to resurrect James Potter if that was a Lazarus Pit he had me destroy. James Potter was wholly under Dumbledore's thumb, I know that much. If Dumbledore could have resurrected him, then that meant he would have James and Harry under his control, in theory. Lily, he would have let die, but she was a Plant Elemental, and the Green have been known to exact retribution for the murder of Plant Elementals. Assuming that the Prophet is telling the truth, anyway."
"But…assuming you're right, Mad-Eye, and Dumbledore put James Potter into a Lazarus Pit…why haven't we heard anything about James Potter since?"
"Maybe we have," Moody said. "Maybe just not under the name of James Potter."
Constantine and Moody opted to leave Kovurt Alley shortly afterwards. They had decided to team up, albeit reluctantly, pool resources. Neither trusted the other much, but there was just enough trust to ensure a reluctant cooperation. But as they made to move off, they heard a braying cackle that, to Constantine, was too-familiar. "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!" jeered a voice from behind them.
Oh God, not him, Constantine thought as he whirled, with Moody doing the same thing, to face the familiar, lanky form of the Joker. Bone-white skin, green hair, ruby-red lips perpetually in a malicious grin, purple suit. How the fuck did he get out of Arkham this time? Oh, who am I kidding? He's turned escaping Arkham into an artform. Then again, he had never met the Joker before, and he wasn't sure whether the Joker knew him well enough to call him by name.
And then, the Joker then said something that had Constantine freeze up inside in shock.
"How's it hangin', Mad-Eye? Still looking like something the cat dragged in and pissed all over! You're losing more bits!"
"We've never met before, and if I had my way, we never would have," Moody snarled, before flinging curses at the Joker.
The Joker merely danced out of the way, before with a crack!, he disappeared, and reappeared behind Moody. Constantine's eyes widened as the Joker sent Moody sprawling to the ground with a vicious kick. The Joker could Apparate! But he wasn't magical, was he?
The very thought of the Joker with magic sent chills down Constantine's spine. He hadn't been quite this scared for quite a while. Even so, as the Joker turned his attention to him next, Constantine slugged the criminal clown across the face, sending him to the ground.
"Ah, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny," the Joker said with a chiding tone. "The Hat put you into Slytherin, and yet, here you are, brawling with me like a Muggle."
Constantine blinked. The Joker knew he had been in Slytherin? But that pause was all the Joker needed, before he used a Body Bind on both of them. He then snatched Mad-Eye's cane away. "You know, I'd love to kill the both of you…but I need you two to deliver a message to Bats and the old goat. So I'll just go a little Clockwork Orange on your worthless hides first. And I'm going to keep your cane, Mad-Eye. Then, I'm going to have to pay a little visit to a certain riddle-obsessed moron. See a man about a dog. Well, a bitch."
"Who the hell are you?" Constantine demanded.
"Who am I? Oh, Johnny, have the years changed me that much?" the Joker said. "Actually, don't answer that. They have. I forgot who I really was until recently. But you remember who set you up for being expelled for that curse, right?"
Constantine's eyes widened in recollection, and realisation. "But…you can't be! You bastard, you…!"
"Oh, shut up!" the Joker said, before kicking Constantine in the stomach. As he gagged, the Joker sneered, "I'd gladly kill you, but I want the world to know that not only is Joker free, but he remembers everything…"
Selina was the nearest to the phone when it rang at Ivy's hideout. Ivy was currently helping to train Harry in his abilities at the moment after his near-miss with the Death Eaters, and his encounter with Raven. Given that Raven had claimed that the Batman was going to contact them, she wondered if this was him. "Hello?" she asked as she picked up the phone.
Then, a familiar, hateful voice came on the phone. "Hello, little pussycat. Don't you dare hang up the phone, or I'll be giving Eddie here a dose of Happy Gas. He's looking a mite too serious at the moment. Bring the weed to the phone."
"Joker," Selina hissed. She took the phone with her, before going to find Ivy. "She's busy."
"She'd better make time for me!" the Joker snapped.
She got into the garden area, where Ivy was sitting next to Harry, surrounded by gently moving plants. Ivy's eyes snapped open as Selina entered, her eyes glowing gently. "Selina?" she asked, her voice warping and flanging slightly.
"Ivy…the clown wants to talk to you. I don't think he's going to take no for an answer."
Ivy scoffed, before she said to Harry, "Continue our exercises." She then walked over, and snatched the phone from Selina, accidentally activating the speakerphone as she did so. "What do you want, clown?"
"I want many things, Lily. But at this moment, I will settle for your head, and that of Harley," the Joker snarled.
Ivy paused, before she said, "How do you know that name?"
"Because I remembered your face. Mine, sadly, was warped beyond recognition, thanks to the tainted Lazarus Pit the old goat dumped me in. After you used me as a meatshield to protect Harry."
Selina saw Ivy pale. "You can't be. You can't be him, he is dead! James Potter is dead!"
"Since when has that ever bothered me?!" the Joker snarled. "After all, I solemnly swear I am up to no good. And you, Lily, will pay for what you did…"
CHAPTER 9 ANNOTATIONS:
I know, I know. A lot of you are up in arms because I've turned James Potter into the Joker. It only really occurred to me to do so partway through writing Chapter 6, and I've been laying the groundwork since. Ironically, a guest reviewer actually said on one of the reviews for Chapter 6 about James Potter being the Joker. I'll say it here and now that I actually had the idea before I read that review. Whoever you are, Guest, I hope you liked this twist.
Now, a lot of you are wondering, I'd bet, why make James Potter the Joker? I mean, beyond bashing him to the extreme? Well, once you take that away, there's a sound, logical link between James Potter and the Joker. Potter, after all, is an unrepentant prankster, which ties in to the Joker's own love of lethal jokes and pranks. And it'd also explain how the Joker managed to survive situations where it seemed he was going to die, but didn't. His magic managed to allow him to Apparate to safety. However, his magic hasn't been fully usable by him for some time, something we will explain in a later chapter.
If any of my readers don't like this, then please, do not fill my reviews for this story with flames. If you don't like the way I am writing this story, then leave. I have plenty of favourites and alerts for this story, showing how popular it really is. I write stories on my own terms, and not yours. This is NOT a collaboration.
Review-answering time! As my reviews are mostly full of people either lamenting or anticipating my turning James Potter into the Joker, there's only one I'm going to answer. Kieran: I only learned of Tefe Holland relatively recently, while researching the Green for this fic. So, sorry, she isn't going to be making an appearance any time soon. I may allude to her, though.
No numbered annotations.